December 2017 - August 2020

Transformative Britain

Grant ID

39933

Project Leader(s)

James Arthur,

Grantee(s)

University of Birmingham

Grant Amount

$5,747,960

Funding area

Character Virtue Development

Department

Character Virtue Development

Transformative Britain proposes to explore aspects of character in the context of professions, education, spirituality/religion, & teacher training. Combined, the projects provide an unprecedented opportunity to impact on the academic, public, and policy discourse on character and virtue in the UK, with substantial academic and practical outputs that go beyond anything achieved so far. For its efforts to be truly transformative for UK society at large, the Jubilee Centre considers it paramount to leave behind the traditional ‘comfort zones’ of moral education, moral psychology, and professional ethics, to engage with groups, issues, and methods that are not part of the standard repertoire of character education. Transformation involves successful execution and measureable change. However, it also involves extension to domains that are often neglected or seen to lie at the fringes of academic research and practical implementation. Extension and widening dissemination will be the core aims of this work, along three ambitious dimensions: Ethical Extension, Educational Extension, and Psychological Extension. Transformative Britain will include conducting rigorous research & transformative interventions with over 100,000 people. Cross-project work will be communicated through website, social media, conferences, special events, briefing papers, academic papers, books, seminars. The outcomes will include a measurable increased awareness of the importance of character and virtue in Britain. Transformation will be measured by investigating changes in public, professional, & political visibility, norms, attitudes & behaviours. We will seek extensive collaborative work and create an enduring impact with a new generation of young people growing up with a greater awareness of how key virtues, as understood by Sir John Templeton, contribute to human flourishing.